n oppressive feeling in me. My reasoning,
too, has undergone a change: in old days I despised money; now I harbour
an evil feeling, not towards money, but towards the rich as though they
were to blame: in old days I hated violence and tyranny, but now I hate
the men who make use of violence, as though they were alone to blame,
and not all of us who do not know how to educate each other. What is
the meaning of it? If these new ideas and new feelings have come from
a change of convictions, what is that change due to? Can the world have
grown worse and I better, or was I blind before and indifferent? If this
change is the result of a general decline of physical and intellectual
powers--I am ill, you know, and every day I am losing weight--my
position is pitiable; it means that my new ideas are morbid and
abnormal; I ought to be ashamed of them and think them of no
consequence...."

"Illness has nothing to do with it," Katya interrupts me; "it's simply
that your eyes are opened, that's all. You have seen what in old days,
for some reason, you refused to see. To my thinking, what you ought to
do first of all, is to break with your family for good, and go away."

"You are talking nonsense."

"You don't love them; why should you force your feelings? Can you call
them a family? Nonentities! If they died today, no one would notice
their absence tomorrow."

Katya despises my wife and Liza as much as they hate her. One can hardly
talk at this date of people's having a right to despise one another. But
if one looks at it from Katya's standpoint and recognizes such a right,
one can see she has as much right to despise my wife and Liza as they
have to hate her.

"Nonentities," she goes on. "Have you had dinner today? How was it they
did not forget to tell you it was ready? How is it they still remember
your existence?"

"Katya," I say sternly, "I beg you to be silent."

"You think I enjoy talking about them? I should be glad not to know
them at all. Listen, my dear: give it all up and go away. Go abroad. The
sooner the better."

"What nonsense! What about the University?"

"The University, too. What is it to you? There's no sense in it, anyway.
You have been lecturing for thirty years, and where are your pupils? Are
many of them celebrated scientific men? Count them up! And to multiply
the doctors who exploit ignorance and pile up hundreds of thousands for
themselves, there is no need to be a good and talented man. You are